


When the Devil Drives

by Tyellas



Series: History is hard to know [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Max Has A Dog, Road Trips, between Mad Max and Road Warrior, for resilient readers, slice of postapocalyptic life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6985546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Max, hardening into the Road Warrior, gives a ride to an older woman who combines desperation and dignity. “I’m Sophia. Lately, they’ve been calling me Miss Giddy … And you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Devil Drives

So much for the corroboree. This settlement was going down.

Max had showed up here for the trade, not the gathering. The people didn’t matter. Nobody mattered, any more. Not since his wife and child had died - he still could barely think their names. Not since he’d left where they’d lived together. Without his family, the months and where he was had become meaningless. He had a car and a dog and a sawn-off shotgun and an increasingly appalled sense of what a disaster the world was. The first three let Max coast through the last one, untouchable, uncaring.

Wherever Max went, it was the same. The raw settlements and road gangs blended into each other. “You’re young, you’re tough. Help us out?” That had a bad way of turning into being asked to stay, when nowhere was good. Either that or he’d be bilked, like today. The raid in progress meant he wasn’t going to be paid for this guarding gig. It was time to cut his losses. He wasn’t anybody’s hero.

Max was good to go in an instant. Except. Where was Dog?

Max looked around and whistled. That was when things went to shit.

A woman dashed up to Max as he had his hand on his car door. Old - at least fifty – tiny, her dark-and-silvering hair falling out of a braid in her hustle. “Are you fighting?”

“No. This is theirs. Not mine.”

“Then get me out of here with you!”

This was his chance to get something out of the place. “I need fuel.” Something exploded at the settlement’s edge.

“The old saying, isn’t it? Nobody rides for free!” There was gunfire. The smell of the explosion billowed over them. The woman next to him shuddered. Half to herself, she moaned, “I can’t do this again. Get me out! Take us north - I’ll get you fuel!”

That was when Dog rammed into Max’s thighs, battering through to the car with a whine. Time to roll. It was easier to let her in than to get her to go away. “In. Now. Down in there.” Max had ripped out the front passenger seat, replacing it with a shelf for Dog, exactly to discourage this, but the old woman was small and curled up easily in the available space. If her slight weight helped the car balance better, Max wasn’t going to acknowledge it as they tore out.

She asked him, “You never heard the old saying – the one that ends ‘nobody rides for free’?”

“Mnh-nh.”

“It’s become bikie slang. If you don’t know it, that speaks well of you,” she said drily.

“You said the important part.”

“I suppose.” Another silence followed. Max winced when she kept going.  “I’m Sophia. Lately, they’ve been calling me Miss Giddy. We were here for the gathering…not only is the party over, I seem to have mislaid my ride in all the shouting. And you?”

Max said nothing.

“Well, all right, then. What about your dog? What’s his name?”

Max spared her a sidelong glare. Dog was doing that thing he did one time in a thousand where he decided somebody else was as good as Max. From his shelf, Dog was wagging his tail, resting his nose on the woman’s shoulder.

He grunted, “Dog.”

“That’s not a name; it’s a noun, an indicator. A name should have one of two things: love or dignity. I could name him for you. Bluey? Boy? Ah, I know. Peaches. Ooh, he likes that one! You’re a peach, yes you are!“

“Don’t name my dog! Fuck,” Max said, accelerating. Vehicles were screaming behind them, roaring up out of his dust. “Got follows. It’s on.”

The old woman was worse than useless in the road battle that followed. Max gave her a chance, too. “Cover me. Shotgun’s left of my seat.”

“I can’t shoot,” she admitted.

Max swore, snatched up the sawn-off, and discharged its two rounds.

“Aim for the tires, not the driver!” she cried.

“You said you can’t shoot!“

She sniffed. “Absolutely. I’m nearsighted. Never shot in my life. But I’ve travelled with a _good_ shot.”

Max gritted his teeth and thrust the smoking gun at her. “Reload. Ammo’s in the glove box.”

“Ouch!”

A minute later, Max extended a hand, then had to turn and glare. “Where is it?”

She was still struggling, and Dog was whining all over her. “This bloody thing’s locked into place. Sorry, I’ve got the hand strength of a marmoset. No, Peaches, not now, no petting now.”

“DON’T NAME MY DOG!”

It hit Max that she’d put one over on him. This happened every time, whenever he tried some deal.

“How are _you_ going to get me fuel?”

She gave a bitter little laugh. “There’s two ways. But I’m planning for the honest one _. I am driven on by the flesh…needs must when the devil drives_. Here.“

She gave him the gun just in time.

Max was proud of what happened next. Ten minutes of race-worthy driving, hitting the dirt to avoid a roadblock, and a shot that didn’t miss, right over the old woman’shead, blasting out the brains of the driver about to ram her side of the car. When they were well clear of the road fight, Max said, “Good shot?”

There was quiet before she responded. “You killed a man...I should be used to this. I should be grateful. I find I'm neither.”            

“How are you alive?”

“I was lucky. Somebody cared: somebody else had ethics.”

Max growled, “Nobody cares about anyone. Do that, wind up broken.”

She said, coldly, “You’re wrong. The ones I’m with – “

“Then why’d they leave you?”

She fell quiet at last, stung. Max found he liked it less than he’d expected.

It was an uncomfortable half an hour until they reached their destination, a far less friendly settlement. Their gates were still open. Max saw a couple of battered vehicles talking to some more security types, sharing the news. The place would lock down soon.

Max said, “This place is shit. But they trade.”

Dry again, the old woman said, “How I agree. We stopped here on our way to the corroboree. Quite the shakedown artists. However, beggars can’t be choosers, and not being burned down is a distinct advantage.”

They were both out of the car. Max turned to her and unholstered his sawn-off. “Fuel. Now.” He wanted to be away before he got tangled up in anything else.

She drew her shoulders back. “Give me an hour, and you’ll have it.” She reached into her anorak’s pockets, took out two small golden items, and murmured, _“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin, said she.”_  Max watched her apply a cosmetic. It didn’t suit her fine features, turned her thin-lipped mouth into a dash of blood. Memories were nigh choking him: flashes of Jessie, dark reminders of what he’d seen as a cop, a bronze, women surviving on the road. But this? The old woman had a considering eye on the settlement, not on him.

All Max could manage was, “You’re. You’re old.”

She acknowledged this crisply. “Yes. I'll tell you who else is. Quite a few of the men here.”

Max took a step back. She snapped the cosmetics closed and undid her braid. The half-dark, half-silver fall of hair was the most striking thing about her. “You don’t think an old man would hire someone close to his age? One day you’ll meet someone who shares your history. Who lived in your world, remembers what you remember, forgives your devil's bargains. Then, you’ll understand how I retain a little value.” She slipped off her grey anorak to tie it around her waist. Her left arm was half-covered with tattooed text. “Either tail me and watch, or trust me to meet you back here by sundown.”

She was trying the glare again, with something warmer behind it. But Max wouldn’t let her in.

Incredibly, she had more to say. At least she spoke simply. “If I’m on my own now, I’ve got little but my good word. You’re alone on the road, too. And we live and die by our deals. You wanted fuel. I promised. You got me out of there. That gave me the choice. I’m alive and I can choose what I do. I am standing beside you, thanks to you. Do you understand?”

This, he allowed. Max reholstered the sawn-off. “I’ll wait.” It was an open invitation for her to bilk him.

They both started the sound of a sustained yell.

Max went to pull the sawn-off against someone dark and stocky, running at them. But the someone barrelled by him to sweep up the woman in a bear hug.

“SOPHIE! SOPH! Where the bloody hell did you come from! We started up and realized you weren’t in and doubled back and the place was fire and blood and - this is awesome!” His blunt accent pulled out the last word, making it twice as long as it should be in celebration.

The hug half-knocked her off her feet. Max saw her unsteady, laughing or maybe crying again, it was hard to tell. They didn’t kiss (a relief, to Max) but they couldn’t be related, they looked so different. She said the other man’s name over and over, until she gasped, “The others!”

“Biohazard’s going spare, Al’s on the other road in giving everyone the shotgun hello and asking about you. Six more got out with us. How’d you _get_ here?”

“I got a ride. With this young man. I owe him some petrol. This is – I never got your name --"

“What man?”

That was the last Max heard. He’d soft-footed back inside the Interceptor, put it in neutral, eased it back. Dog knew to be quiet when Max went stealthy, though he sniffed where the woman had sat, wedged in there instead of the usual dog seat.

Max saw them stare around for a moment. The old woman was no fool. She turned her eyes down to see his tracks. He was definitely a fool, with where the arrow sat on his fuel gauge. He still wasn’t anybody’s hero. But that yammering reunion had been – something. A different kind of fuel.

Max’s last glimpse of her in the rear view was of her pointing down, at the one thing he had left. A word he'd scrawled in the dust where he’d been standing.

PAID.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to propoception for the beta read!
> 
> Miss Giddy's quotes:
> 
>  _The old saying_ – Ass, grass, or gas: nobody rides for free.  
>  _I am driven on by the flesh…needs must when the devil drives_ – Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well  
>  _Some polish is gained with one’s ruin, said she_ – The Ruin’d Maid, Thomas Hardy.


End file.
